Five Times Watson Wondered What She Was Doing
by hophophop
Summary: "To thine own self, Watson." Five very loosely connected pieces written for trope bingo. (Previously posted at AO3 under slightly different title.)
1. Chapter 1

_"To thine own self, Watson."_

**Five very loosely connected pieces for trope bingo (round two): 24-hours to live, snowed-in, amnesia, fork in the road, future fic. **  
You can sign up for round three, which runs through 2014, at trope-bingo dot dreamwidth dot org

* * *

Dusk had slid into night, as best she could tell from where she hid. Her phone battery was almost depleted, but at last check it had been seven hours. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't stop reliving the moment the glass shattered and horror filled his eyes. Up until that point she had believed him that the vial they grabbed from the storage unit was inert, the volatile compound still among the hidden caches on their list. She'd slipped on the stairs and the heavy glass door swung shut, her on the side with the shards and the smell. His picks were already flipping tumblers as she got up, and she threw herself at the door before he could finish.

"No! You can't — if you open it now you'll be contaminated too! We need a hazmat team." The fumes were making it difficult to keep her eyes open, although closing them didn't stop the burning. "Go! I can't—" She drew her arm up over her face as the coughing began. "Go Sherlock!"

She saw him mouth her name as he pulled out his phone and let lose what appeared to be an impressive volley of curses when there was no signal. He jammed it back into his pocket and flicked a glance toward her, stricken and one hand outstretched toward the glass between them, and then he turned and ran.

She stumbled back away from the stuff, as far from it as she could. The ceiling fans overhead would distribute the material through the room all too efficiently. Her eyes were still streaming and she had no idea what the lethal exposure might be, but if only through placebo effect, she felt better on the other side of the room from it. There was a shiny puddle on the floor amid the broken glass where it fell. Almost like mercury, although the color wasn't quite right and she couldn't focus to see it clearly. No matter. Right now, she wanted to hide from it more than anything.

She wiped her eyes and looked around to see what was here she might use. A stack of battered wooden pallets, a tattered and stained olive green tarp, good, and a couple of trash bags full of who knows what. She stripped off her shoes, pants, and coat, grabbing her phone from the pocket, and then paused, weighing her options. It was cold but not freezing: Hypothermia would be possible but not certain before help came or…. Whatever the hell that stuff was, it was caustic; her entire upper respiratory system felt inflamed. Every second she delayed meant more exposure. On the other hand, it was quite possible there was nothing she could do to protect herself from it. Fine. Keep the socks and shirt. Another moment's hesitation. And the sweater. She ripped open the trash bags, dumping the desiccated contents and stuffed one inside another, then squatted down on a third bag laid over the pallets with the tarp pulled over her head. Crouched under the tarp, she pulled the doubled trash bags over herself. Inside that, she pulled her arms and head inside her sweater so she could imagine the wool filtered out whatever the hell might be trapped inside the other layers with her. She bent her knees and stretched the sweater over them trying to cover as much of herself as she could.

Now she just had to try not to hyperventilate until they came to get her out of there.

* * *

Seven hours of putting every meditation technique she'd ever learned or heard of kept the panic at bay, although the first hour or so had been shot through with adrenaline bursts at every sound. It was a relief to feel the exhaustion rise up past her ability to push it aside. It was getting harder to ignore the anxiety over how long it was taking for help to come; unconsciousness would make the time pass so much easier. Everyone who knew her knew she loved sleep. It was one of the things she did well, and despite life-long ridicule and disdain for always making it a priority, she was not-so-secretly smug about all the science that proved its many physical and mental benefits. The fact that nothing else in her life had ever mattered more than getting enough sleep was irrelevant. Certainly not pitiable.

Except now it was no longer true. For the first time there were things she desired more than a good night's sleep. She was shy about it, almost embarrassed by not wanting to miss out or be left behind, choosing to affect exasperation and exhaustion instead. There was little doubt he saw right through it, but they each played their parts in the game of Watson Wants to Sleep, and she felt shy about that, too. But now, after hours of willfully ignoring her exposure to possibly lethal doses of god-knows-what, she was long past any professional pride at wanting to be found alert and ready for action. She tipped over to lie on her side, head and bent knees still tented inside the straining sweater, hands together and slipped under her head. She was so tired.

Panic jolted her awake and she struggled to roll upright as she coughed. Her eyes were watering again and her nose burned. The stuff was heavier than air, apparently, pooling at floor level, and still potent. At least the hours spent huddled in her makeshift shelter weren't for nothing. Or hadn't been, until changing positions had exposed her again to whatever was circulating underneath the stack of pallets she sat on. She indulged herself with a brief flare from her phone: 12:41am. Over ten hours now. Everything ached. No way to know if that was from spending hours curled up in a ball or an effect of the chemical. Or the cold; fear had kept her warm at first, and then numbness set in while she slept, but now she couldn't stop shivering. Hypothermia would likely lull her to sleep again soon enough. She was almost too tired to care as she leaned her forehead against her knees and closed her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

"I like snow when I don't have to go anywhere in it." Joan stood at the front windows watching the heavy fall pile up outside. It had been snowing steadily for twelve hours, and it seemed brighter outside now, at midnight, with the city lights reflected back by the white above and below, than it had when the storm started at noon. She laid her hand flat against the cold glass, setting off a full-body shiver. "Also when there's no chance of the power going out. There's no chance of the power going out, right?"

She received a grumble in reply, which was more than the comment deserved, really. Apparently he was in a better mood than she expected. She turned to the room and climbed back into the nest of blankets she'd made on the couch. Once settled, she pulled a folder from the stack on the floor and flipped it open, reviewing the contents. She wanted to get through five more before heading up to bed.

Earlier in the evening some folks had ventured out to play, shouting and laughing as they waded through two-foot deep drifts. Their voices made Joan crave hot chocolate, but she settled for green tea and a Yorkshire pudding rescued before Sherlock could toss the whole batch. The internet informed her they froze well, so she convinced him to dump them into freezer bags when he was done, instead of the trash.

They weren't on a particularly stressful case this week, so she deduced he must have received another letter from Newgate when the baking smell filled the brownstone the day before. A distinct olfactory improvement over his various attempts to destroy dolls, in any case. As an indication of his state of mind, however, she much preferred melted plastic.

The only sounds now were the low rustle of the fire and a light spit of blown snow against the windows. Their street was low priority for snow ploughs, and anybody who wanted or needed to drive was either long gone or thwarted for the duration. A wave of cozy drowsiness suggested she might have been overly ambitious about those last five folders, and she slid lower under the blanket with a contented sigh.

She woke to the squeak of a bicycle wheel and chilled feet in early morning light. Sherlock sat by the fireplace wheeling the toast away from the flames and the kettle toward them, the blanket she was pretty sure had been covering her feet draped over his shoulders.

"Oh please don't tell me the power's gone out." She pushed up to sit against the couch arm rest, tucking her feet under the remaining blanket.

"As you wish." He spoke to the fireplace, not turning around. She yawned and stretched her shoulders, feeling stiff as she worked on waking up her neck. As she turned her head she saw the usual lights on all his scanners in the study, as well as the lamp on the lock room table.

"So, the power's not out," she said, relieved at the thought of a hot shower in her future. He shrugged, still staring at the kettle. "Why are you cooking up here?"

"Why not?"

"I don't have any reasons why not, but that doesn't actually answer my question. Is this for science, somehow?"

He nudged the base of the rig a little closer to the grate, adjusting the wheel slightly. She wasn't in any particular hurry at what — she fished her phone out from under those last five folders to check the time — 6:23; she could wait him out, maybe put in a little meditation practice at the same time. Many long slow breaths later she heard the wheel again, and he lifted the now steaming kettle off to pour into the waiting teapot.

"My feet were cold standing in front of the stove," he said. "I'd rather wait up here where they could be warmed along with the water."

"And how much longer did it take, this way?"

He glanced over at her then, shifting his lips against a smile. "Twelve minutes, forty-one seconds."


	3. Chapter 3

They had a case once that involved amnesia. The client claimed her sister had a brain injury from a car accident and could no longer remember the previous three years of her life. This was unfortunate for the client, as the sister had invested several thousand dollars on her behalf and now, supposedly, could not recall any details about the investments nor locate any records or files related to it. Sherlock took the case, he told her, because he was curious to see whether the two sisters were in on it together or whether the alleged amnesiac — officially given that title for the duration — was scamming her sister. The Alleged Amnesiac had medical records purporting to verify her tale, but Joan pointed out a dozen problems on the first sheet alone. In the end, it turned out to be a simple case of duped sibling, which disappointed Sherlock in its dullness but also pleased him as a welcome substantiation of his firm belief that siblings were not to be trusted.

* * *

As a child, Joan often had dreams that she wasn't sure were dreams, dreams of waking from a nightmare only to find she was still dreaming, trapped in the nightmare. The worst variation involved realizing she had forgotten who she was and so there would be no way to tell what was real and what was dream. Sometimes three or four cycles of this, leaving her distrusting reality more often than not, to the exasperation of her parents. When she learned there were horror movies based on this premise, she flat-out refused to see them despite otherwise being a huge fan of the genre. She never came up with a reliable test to convince herself she was awake, and when she had too much to drink in college was prone to meandering speeches about everything being a dream and nothing being real. Her best friend begged her not to take any philosophy classes for fear she'd never be able to stop speculating on the nature of reality.

* * *

In the months following _that day_, she desperately wished she could fall into her childhood nightmare again and forget who she was and what she had done. At her lowest moments she wished she could simply feel she'd done something horrible without knowing the 'what' of it. One night free from the knowledge. She'd pay the price of the emotional burden, the guilt. She just didn't want to know any more. As they say, it got better with time, but not ever good, not again. The best solution she'd found was to imagine her life began the day she started training as a sober companion and not one second earlier. She got through almost two years like that, until she met Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock's preference for denial was almost completely opposite to hers. He always wanted to know and would gladly know every terrible thing he'd done if only he didn't have to carry the emotional weight too. He readily admitted it to everyone: he had no use for emotional entanglements; they were distractions and hindrances that got in the way. Rationally deployed empathy with victims and suspects made him a successful detective. Anger and irritability created a repulsive buffer that shoved people out of his way like a snow plough. Anything else simply slowed him down. She knew he knew she thought that was bullshit. They both knew she was right.


	4. Chapter 4

She made her choice. Over and over again.

She doesn't count the day she accepted the job. That wasn't a choice to stay, after all. It was simply the step in the door. The first move that made everything else possible.

No, the first time she decided to stay was at the opera. About fifteen minutes before he showed up, during an orchestral interlude. Her anger over his dissection of the most agonizing moment of her life hadn't survived the retreat to her room, but her chagrin at having lost her temper lingered well into the opera's second act. The plaintive call of the oboe unlocked the tension caught in her chest, and a few deep breaths later her resolve returned. She didn't expect him to make it easy for her, but it was already clear that was never going to be an option.

The second time was near the end of her contract. He must have overheard her mother pushing her to admit she enjoyed the work he did. Soon after, the incessant badgering began, simultaneously undercut by a heavy layer of sarcasm. The message was clear, if contradictory: I don't need you/Don't leave me. As she had recently pointed out to him, it was a common reaction by clients to the impending transition, although Sherlock put his own unique spin on it, as always. It was flattering, when he wasn't insulting her, but despite her mother's encouragement (or to be honest perhaps because of it), there was simply no way. She'd only just chosen this career; it was too soon to change again. And besides, it would be negligence. Sherlock needed closure, needed to know he could stand on his own. Telling him she'd already accepted her next client was painful and necessary. It was also the first time she lied to him.

The second lie followed the third time she chose, confirmed by his father's callous indifference. The lies would catch up, eventually.

It was easy to tell herself she stayed because her job wasn't done, because he was in crisis. That was true of course, but complete truth only if she ignored the depth of her selfishness. It became easier to ignore all the reasons she stayed, to forget his cold eyes and cold weapons, and instead to embrace the thrill and satisfaction she felt with the resolution of each case. She never slept better.

When he laid bare her deceit she thought that would be the end of it, both choices and lies. Instead he offered another option. She knew her answer immediately but didn't trust herself and kept silent on the subject for almost two days. If she'd known she was going to spend the next three months continuing to doubt herself and having those doubts reinforced by others (never him), she might have chosen differently (no she wouldn't).

The most recent time came after he walked away from her. "I'm leaving New York," he said, and she heard how he did not say "leaving you," and she dove straight down into the dark unknown without him, choosing the future that brought them back together. The vindication that came in the end was both ugly and sweet.

The next time might be the last. It had taken her too long to see it, complacent now, more than a year since they'd begun. In recent weeks she'd felt him crowding her when she met him at the threshold, no longer hanging back to push her forward but jostling with her as they squeezed through the doorway at the same time. He couldn't be surprised to find her there, standing next to him, but his balance was disrupted. Perhaps it all happened too fast? The steady support of those early months stuttered as the indefinite stretch of her commitment extended like shadows in the late winter afternoon. Her growing confidence was met by his inconsistency, half the time encouraging and including, the other half railroading or grandstanding. If she stepped first, he was just as likely to open the door wider as to throw a distraction into her path. As much as he wanted a partner, he didn't always know what to do with her and still hadn't grasped that that was the wrong question to ask.

Don't leave me/I don't need you. There was nothing she could do to help him solve his dilemma. One day, maybe soon, his inability or unwillingness to decide would present her with the choice one more time.


	5. Chapter 5

"Joanie, what is this?" Gabrielle was flipping through a scrapbook of newspaper clippings Sherlock pulled off one of the top shelves for her to browse when she wouldn't stop asking for stories about old cases. Joan really should get in the habit of making use of the ladder to keep better track of what he stored up there.

Gabrielle jabbed her finger at the middle of one of the pages. "Did your mother know about this? Because if anything could give someone a heart attack—"

Joan frowned, thinking back two years and then three, to each of Mary's MIs. Oh. She turned to glare at Sherlock, whose shoulders were suspiciously hunched where he sat facing away from her on the floor with her nieces, the rods and balls from the chemistry model set strewn between them. She stepped over to Gabrielle and pulled the book from her lap, snapping it shut and tucking it under an arm. The brief glimpse of the photo on the page confirmed her conclusion.

"Gabrielle, that was a long time ago. Mom doesn't know about it, and there's no reason for her to know. That article wasn't published until after the case was finished, weeks after the incident. By the time I got out of the warehouse, Mom was already in the OR. She didn't have any more idea of what happened to me that day than I had of her. It was a terrible day. Please let's not rehash it again." _It was the day I thought I was going to die. And when that was finally over, it was the day I thought my mother would die. And after that…_

Gabrielle gave a few huffs as she wrestled with the urge to push for more, and Joan knew without a diversion, pushing would win. And then Sherlock's hand was on her shoulder for a moment before he slipped the book from under her arm and took it away. Far, far away, she hoped. Maybe they could have a bonfire tonight; Sherlock loved setting things on fire. He didn't have any happy memories of that day, she was certain. Any relief at her rescue was overshadowed by what followed.

He came back from upstairs to announce it was time for the popcorn experiment, and who was ready? The two girls jumped up eagerly, and Sherlock called over to Gabrielle, all innocence, to ask for a qualified adult chaperone who was not the killjoy who said he wasn't allowed to experiment on popcorn unsupervised any more. The girls giggled and Gabrielle got up and gave Joan a quick hug and a "Sorry" in one ear, and headed down to the kitchen with her daughters.

Joan lay down on the couch, one arm bent over her eyes, listening to the clatter of pans and high-pitched chatter of excited children on the floor below. For a moment she considered slipping into old habits and forcing the looming memories out of mind, sipping the sweet poison of denial once more. No. She didn't take that path these days. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying not to will her memories away. She wasn't going to get lost, she wasn't going to drown. Trying to forget wouldn't make what happened go away.

She made an awful choice that day, shattered by her ordeal and her mother's collapse. She left the brownstone, walked away from everything. Tried to stop feeling and knowing. Tried to leave their partnership behind. It happened, and it was over, and eventually she came home again. Now, all was well; it truly was. They survived. The partnership healed because it had never been severed. She didn't have that power. The terrible things they'd said to each other that day didn't have that power. She'd never say she was better off for having gone through it, but scar tissue was strong. It hurt when unexpectedly stretched, but it would hold. She was sure.


End file.
